As construction wraps up at the Stone House, a former membership club that’s set to open this summer as a hotel, developer Goosewing Hotels & Resorts is showcasing the project’s green elements.
That includes being featured on “Renovation Nation,” a program on Discovery Channel’s Planet Green channel. The episode featuring the Little Compton project is set to air tonight at 9 p.m., according to Goosewing.
Zachary Miller, co-founder and president of development at Goosewing, took a few minutes this week to tell Providence Business News about those green elements.
PBN: This project started in 2007. Did you hit any snags during construction and do you expect to finish on time and on budget?
MILLER: As with any major construction, we have had to revise our objectives and expenses on occasion. Of course, there are never certainties when embarking on a major renovation of a more than 160-year-old structure with multiple overlapping uses, such as two restaurants, 13 hotel rooms, a spa and public spaces. Add to that the federal and sate historic tax credit programs, sustainable-building objectives and new construction code requirements, and you find yourself awake at 3 a.m. quite a bit. It has been a fantastic process and we are excited to re-open for this summer.
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PBN: And being green has been a big part of this project. Could you tell me about some of those elements?
MILLER: We find that historic restoration is synonymous with sustainable development. The original builders of the Stone House utilized some ingenious design techniques for natural cooling and ventilation. The historic wrap-around porches, roof-top cupola and wide projecting eves were some of these elements lost to time and Mother Nature that we were able to recreate. Also, by installing more than 70 geothermal bore holes underground, we eliminated the need for petroleum products onsite and avoided the introduction of noisy cooling towers. We also found photovoltaic solar panels that are less than a quarter-inch thick and installed them atop of the historic porches.
PBN: Where did your reclaimed wood come from? What was it used for?
MILLER: The property has a secondary structure we call the “Wood Barn.” During the renovation, it was necessary to replace some of the old wood beams with new steel. The consensus is the wood beams were southern yellow pine that 160 years ago would have been over 100 years old. Some of the timbers were almost 60 feet long and straight as an arrow. We had a portable sawmill brought in and created tables, bar tops and room furniture from the reclaimed material. The deep-orange wood has a luminous glow that is gorgeous and irreplaceable.
PBN: One building will also be covered with ivy and topped with a grass roof – how was that decision made and what will be under that green roof?
MILLER: As a National Historic Register property, we were required to render a 1980s-era addition into a “garden wall.” We saw this as another sustainable opportunity and enhanced this green structure with a grass roof. The building was built with Insulated Concrete Forms and houses our required Americans with Disabilities Act hotel unit. I think it is one of the nicest suites we have on property.
PBN: Did adding sustainable elements increase the construction cost? Was it more difficult than other renovations Goosewing has done?
MILLER: This project has been top-to-bottom very complex for its size. The investment structure, historic tax credits, sustainability concepts and 160-year-old buildings presented a lot of moving parts. Of those four elements, the sustainable development was the least difficult. Our investors required that we demonstrate the fiscal advantages of all-green technology and we put together a very strong group of professionals that enabled that demonstration and implementation.
